Fried Play: Electric Vehicles Burn Out In Ireland
Electric vehicle (EV) sales are plummeting in Ireland. New EV registrations are down about 40 percent from this time last year, according to the Society of the Irish Motor Industry (SIMI).
However, the Irish establishment has promoted EVs as part of their larger climate change agenda. Green Party leader Eamon Ryan promised just last year a €100M plan to promote EVs. How can EV adoption in Ireland be diminishing when the propaganda and subsidies are all pushing for it?
The bottom line is that EVs are expensive, unreliable, and costly to maintain.
Over the past two decades of EV market expansion, costly EVs were only accessible to the rich. Tesla’s first cars were priced at $100,000. While EV prices have moderated, it is no surprise that the average EV owner is richer than the average consumer in general. A research paper from The Energy Institute at the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley found that “only 10% of U.S. households with an EV are single-vehicle households, compared to 37% of all U.S. households. Thus, households with an EV are almost four times less likely to be single-vehicle households.”
The paper also found that 89% of those households that owned EVs owned a non-electric vehicle too. Most of those dual owners drove the non-EV cars more miles per year. This indicates that EVs are a luxury status symbol for richer consumers that act more as an accessory like a Rolex watch than something bought for its functional utility. While EV adoption increased for a few years, there are only so many rich people that can afford to a buy a new EV as a luxury. Most consumers prefer to buy affordable cars that get them from A to B.
A caveat to this is that used EV prices are coming down. A used Tesla’s price was reportedly down anywhere from 29 percent to 53 percent. Here is why that’s still problematic.
In general, used EVs depreciated much faster than non-EV cars of the same age. 64 percent of consumers felt that the resale value was important to their car purchasing decision. The idea that any term of ownership can result in massive depreciation is off-putting. This is especially true of ordinary consumers that see their car as an asset they can sell in the case of extreme life circumstances. If the car is financed, this can also result in the debt being worth more than the car.
A reduced resale value is also associated with poor quality. For all the hype about EVs being a sophisticated technology, the product experience is often plagued by malfunctions and shoddy manufacturing. Consumer Reports found that EV owners had about 80 percent more problems than non-EV owners. As EV adoption increased, these problems have been showcased across social media and have racked up millions of views. Issues concerned the battery, charging, software, and even basic things like doors not being fit properly.
If an EV needs repairs, EV owners are confronted with even more hassle. Mechanic shops are often not specialized nor prepared with the necessary parts to deal with the niche issues of EVs. This leads to inflated repair costs and long delays.
For example, a car repair professional interviewed for this article suggested that tire replacement is a surprising problem EV owners face. EV tires are different than regular tires because they must handle the additional weight of the EV battery. This means the availability of EV-specific tires is in a much shorter supply and at higher price points.
The mechanics themselves are cautious on EVs. There are not a lot of qualified technicians to service EV specific issues and the costs of training up ones are still too high. Not only that but Reuters reported that many are scared of these risky high voltage EVs that “could electrocute and kill unwary or untrained technicians in seconds…Along with electrocution risks, the risk of EV fires – which are notoriously hard to put out – also has to be taken seriously.”
Taken together then, the high costs, long delays, and safety risks make the prospect of EV maintenance very unattractive.
These negative issues contributed to the overall decline in future EV market expansion. Ford, GM, Mercedes-Benz, Volkswagen, Jaguar Land Rover and Aston Martin have all recently announced halts or delays in future EV plans. Hertz, one of the largest car rental companies, just had its CEO resign because of his aggressive EV strategy. It resulted in high repair costs and low demand which caused Hertz to sell at least one third of its EV fleet and replace them with non-EVs. Hertz incurred quarterly losses and lower share prices because of this.
Now EV believers might counter that if only there was proper government support for charging infrastructure this would save EVs and dull the other pain points. It is unclear that, after so much subsidy has already been given, things would change in the future. In addition, what hope is there to count on the government to even deliver on these promises?
The U.S. government allocated $7.5B to build 500,000 charging stations. In just over two years, only 7 stations have been built across 4 states. That’s a .0014% completion rate (yes you read that right).
Just look at the Irish government’s handling of the MetroLink. A plan initiated in 2005, revised in 2015, and hit with delay after delay. The opening date was most recently pushed all the way back to 2035. On top of that the original cost estimate of €3B ballooned to €9.5B to €23B. There is no reason to think, based on the track record of the MetroLink, that the current Irish establishment could successfully deliver the necessary quantity of charging stations.
This circles back to the big picture that Irish establishment is in crisis. Extreme immigration has rocked Ireland, and three fourths of the country think it’s too much. Neglecting the property sector has resulted in housing crisis that has radicalized young people into fearing they may never own a home. In the recent referendum, middle Ireland rejected extreme distortions of the meaning of family, marriage, and motherhood the Irish establishment desired to insert into the constitution.
The establishment politicians themselves are even bowing out in mass. Leo Varadkar resigned from Taoiseach with nearly a dozen of other Fine Gael politicians stepping down. From this time last year to now, polls revealed every party has either declined or remained the same besides the growth for Independents and Aontú. Given this contingent represents the most prominent challenge to the Irish establishment, it’s clear people recognize the crisis and those to blame.
While EV promotion isn’t the reason politicians are resigning, they are part and parcel of the flawed ideology of these politicians. If nine out of ten ideas are seen to be bad, why would the tenth idea be any better?
In my view, the regressive policy of EV extremism should be rejected by the Irish public. Irish consumers should not be forced into a backwards technology that’s expensive, unreliable, and a tax drain. Ireland has given EVs a fair play, let it return to common sense before the country gets fried.
Originally published on Gript on 15/04/2024:
https://gript.ie/fried-play-electric-vehicles-burn-out-in-ireland/